DAR AL ISLAM-IRAQ: U.S. MILITARY SAYS IT HAS EVIDENCE OF IRAN & IRAQI COOPERATION CONCERNING THEIR JIHAD ON AMERICANS THERE

U.S. accuses Iran military of plotting in Iraq

BAGHDAD: The U.S. military says it has evidence linking a group of Iranians and some Iraqi associates, detained in raids last week, to attacks against U.S. forces. The military also said that some of those detained had been involved in shipments of weapons to groups in Iraq.

In its first official confirmation of the raids last week, the military said Tuesday that it had confiscated maps, videos, photographs and documents in a raid on a site in Baghdad. The military said that it had arrested five Iranians and that three of them had been released.

The Bush administration has described the two Iranians still being held as senior military officials. Major General William Caldwell, the spokesman for the U.S. command here, said in an e-mail that the military had "gathered specific intelligence from highly credible sources that linked individuals and locations with criminal activities against Iraqi civilians, security forces and coalition force personnel."

"Some of that specific intelligence," Caldwell said in the e-mail, "dealt explicitly with force-protection issues, including attacks on MNF-I forces." MNF-I stands for Multinational Force- Iraq, the official name of the U.S.-led foreign forces there.

Washington has asserted before that Iran has been "interfering" in Iraq, but the arrests — in the Baghdad compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of the country's most powerful Shiite leaders — were the first since the U.S. invasion in which it has offered evidence of a link.

The Iraqi government has made extensive efforts to engage Iran in security matters in recent months and the arrests of the Iranians could scuttle those efforts. Some Iraqis questioned the timing of the arrests, saying that the Bush administration had political motives. The arrests came days before the UN Security Council passed a resolution imposing sanctions against Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

The Bush administration has rejected domestic and foreign pressure to open negotiations with Tehran on Iraq.

The Iraqi government has been silent about the arrests, but some officials spoke Tuesday night of intense behind- the-scenes talks by its political elite over how to handle the situation.

...

What the hell good is the evidence when the United States does nothing but protest?!? I mean come on, perhaps if some city in Iran had the crap bombed out of it, it may actually mean something...

Otherwise, it is nothing more than the mewlings of a Paper Tiger...


Pertinent Links:

1) U.S. accuses Iran military of plotting in Iraq